Communication systems, including radio communication systems, can be quite complex. Such communication systems may include numerous communication channels with many receivers, transmitters, and transceivers all operating simultaneously on the communication network. In certain types of communication networks, certain individuals, hereinafter operators, are responsible for monitoring and controlling communications and communicating with field personnel via the communication network to coordinate the efforts and locations of the field personnel.
A classic example of such an operator is a dispatcher on a public safety radio telecommunication network used by public safety officials, such as police, fire fighters, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), hospitals, etc. Other examples include military dispatchers overseeing combat operations and civilian dispatchers for transportation companies such as trucking companies, taxi and other livery companies, shipping and courier companies such as Federal Express and the United States Postal Service, and utility companies such as telephone, cable television, electricity, and gas companies. These dispatchers are often responsible for coordinating the efforts of a large number of field personnel, such as police officers, fire fighters, taxi drivers, repair and installation crews, etc.
It is common for multiple dispatchers to simultaneously operate on a single communication network, each dispatcher assuming responsibility with respect to one or more different talk groups and/or one or more different emergent incidents. The term emergent incident as used herein essentially refers to any incident having a relatively short temporal duration as compared to the useful life of the communication network and arising after the network is in operation.
A talk group, as used herein, is a set of individuals (or, more accurately, their radio devices) that can communicate with each other. For instance, police officers may comprise one talk group while fire fighters comprise a different talk group. Generally speaking, the police officers can communicate with the dispatchers and with each other using one set of communication channels and the firefighters can communicate with each other and the dispatchers using another set of channels, but the firefighters and the police officers in different talk groups normally cannot communicate with each other directly over the communication network. A talk group may be an individual police unit (e.g., SWAT, Narcotics, Canine), an individual police department, an individual EMT group, the members of an individual fire station, or combinations thereof (e.g., the New York City Fire Department and the New York City Police Department combined may be a talk group, while the New York City Police Department and the New York City Fire Department also are two other talk groups).
In large communication networks, multiple dispatchers may work side by side in a control room and have overlapping duties and responsibilities. Any single dispatcher may oversee a very large number of different talk groups, possibly numbering in the hundreds.
Commonly, a dispatcher sits at a dispatch station, which may be in a control room shared with other dispatchers. Each dispatcher station typically comprises a plurality of computer monitors and other user interface devices (such as computer mouses, foot switches, speakers, microphones, etc.). Dispatchers frequently work under emergency conditions in which potentially life and death decisions must be made under severe time constraints.
A typical dispatcher station may have about three to six computer monitors between which the dispatcher must divide his or her attention. In the exemplary dispatcher station illustrated in FIG. 1, the dispatcher 10 has four monitors 11, 12, 13, 14, three of which (12, 13, 14) are under the control of and used by a computer aided dispatch (CAD) computer system 15 that displays important information to the dispatcher, such as the locations and identities of various field personnel and equipment and the location and identity of various situations or incidents that require the attention of the field personnel. Typically, another monitor 11 is dedicated for use by a dispatch console 16. A dispatch console essentially is a specially programmed computer 16 (it may be a general purpose computer running special dispatch console software or a mission-specific computer) that manages the communication assets at the dispatcher's disposal and displays information about the communication network on a monitor like monitor 11 that is dedicated to the dispatch console. Each dispatch station further typically has a plurality of speakers 17, 18 on which the communications of the various talk groups are heard. Each speaker typically outputs the communications of a plurality of talk groups. The dispatcher normally also has a two-way communication headset 18 on which the dispatcher usually communicates with one particular talk group at any given time (or possibly a patch or simulselect group as will be discussed further below).
By way of a typical scenario using a public safety dispatcher as an example, a call taker at a 911 center receives calls from the general population relating to emergencies or other public safety situations and types up an incident report with the critical information about the emergency, such as the nature and the location of the emergency, and sends it electronically to a dispatcher's CAD system (although, in some cases, the dispatcher may also be the caller taker and the writer of the incident report.) The dispatcher reviews the information and makes a determination based on his or her experience as to what field assets (personnel, equipment, etc.) should be assigned to the incident as a function of the size and nature of the incident, the available assets and their locations, other on-going incidents, and then uses the dispatch console to create, manipulate, and control talk groups and communicate with field personnel to attempt to address the incident.
However, many CAD systems automatically generate a recommendation for the dispatcher as to what resources should be committed to an incident that was input to the system based on the information contained in the electronic incident report. For instance, the CAD system may receive an incident report of a car fire on River Road, Springfield at city grid location 24-59 and recommend that the dispatcher commit to the incident (1) a police car that is in the vicinity of the car fire (and the two corresponding police officers), (2) a hook and ladder unit from the nearest fire station, (3) an EMT unit from the same fire station, and (4) a city tow truck out of the city car lot near River Road. The dispatcher normally has the option to accept the recommendation or ignore the recommendation and choose resources of his or her own choosing.
A typical dispatch console software product, such as the MaestroIP system sold by the Harris Corporation, provides a database of hundreds upon hundreds of features of which a subset thereof usually is selected by the purchaser of the system for creating a suitable overall user interface for that purchaser's specific application.
Normally, a dispatcher's attention is primarily directed to the CAD system monitors 12, 13, 14, and not to the dispatch console monitor 11, which often is positioned off to the side of the CAD monitors. Nevertheless, the dispatch console has an extremely critical role in enabling the dispatcher to perform his or her duties.